Jerry McCrea/The Star-LedgerNets owner Bruce Ratner needs 'significant' financial assistance to keep the team afloat, according to a current investor.

Bruce Ratner's gift for salesmanship is matched only by his determination, as over the past five years he has sold his vision of pro basketball in Brooklyn to countless politicians, sponsors, community groups, and even some economists.

Now the Nets' owner is trying to sell off the most tangible asset he has -- the team, or at least a sizable portion of it.

So far, nobody's buying.

But according to numerous officials throughout the organization,
Ratner may soon find someone to help alleviate the team's crushing debt
load and facilitate the construction of the Atlantic Yards project, and
the candidates range from the former CEO of Yahoo to a billionaire
industrialist from Russia -- each of whom would still move the team
from New Jersey.

"I would be surprised if it doesn't happen fairly soon," said a
high-ranking Nets official, who requested anonymity so as not to
jeopardize Ratner's plans. "Bruce has looked into several options. He's
had offers, he's made counteroffers, and at some point in time --
probably by the time the season gets under way -- something will
transpire."

To what degree Ratner needs help is uncertain, even to some of the
team's own investors. One who is admittedly skittish over the team's
annual losses and the dubious plans for Brooklyn said earlier this week
that Ratner needs "significant" financial assistance to keep the team
afloat.

"We all know he's looking to raise capital, and it is our
understanding that he is looking to sell management partnership in the
team," said the investor, one of scores of people who own a small
percentage of the Nets. "It could be a complete sell-off, but
undoubtedly Bruce wants to stay active in the team for the move to
Brooklyn."

Ratner refused comment through a spokesman for Forest City
Enterprises, but his activities of late cannot disguise his intentions.
As recently as last week, he flew to Moscow to meet face-to-face with
the aforementioned billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov, who is not
unfamiliar with the basketball business, as he is a chief financier for
CSKA Moscow.

But Prokhorov is not the only potential investor.

The most viable candidate -- according to people on both the New
Jersey and Brooklyn sides of the Nets' organization -- is Terry Semel,
the former CEO of Yahoo and Warner Bros, and a Brooklyn native.

Other candidates are current investors in the team, whose interest
are presently estimated at a two-percent share. They are Vinny Viola
and Marc Lasry, two commodities traders that were once in partnership
for this venture, but have purportedly splintered.

Viola is the former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and
a pioneer in the electronic trading field. Lasry is the founder of
Avenue Capital Group, a global investment firm.

And as of late last week, a fourth candidate was Jeff Feinberg of
JLF Asset Management, a hedge fund in Del Mar, Calif. with considerable
interests in China, but his candidacy seems to have waned.

None of these potential investors returned calls soliciting comment.

Newark mayor Cory Booker has said he would like to see the Nets move
to Newark and play in the Prudential Center, even predicting in May
that he expected a sale of the team and the collapse of the Atlantic
Yards project. But Ratner is said to only be interested in a
partnership with investors committed to the Brooklyn move.

Ratner's highest officials, for their part, haven't denied that he's
shopping for help. As recently as last week, Nets CEO Brett Yormark
issued this statement after an interview request.

"As we have said before, we have received interest from potential
investors in the team," Yormark said through a publicist. "That
interest is growing, as it is clear that we are moving to Brooklyn. Our
ownership group is as committed as ever to the success of the Nets and
to the Barclays Center."

But employees and investors alike are getting wary over Ratner's
stewardship, and there has been a significant drop in morale within the
basketball and business sides of the operation.

On the business side, more than 20 employees have been laid off
since last September. And even though the Nets' player payroll is the
eighth lowest in the NBA, the basketball side required that four
members of its coaching staff take huge pay cuts last week. One
assistant, Roy Rogers -- whose $100,000 salary was slashed by roughly
$20,000, according to a basketball official familiar with the team's
pay scale -- is considering a move to Rutgers, where he would earn a
higher wage than last year.

A former employee, who requested anonymity so that he could speak
candidly, put it this way: "They've really created an environment where
you don't want to stay there anymore. It's gotten really bad,
especially for those of us who have gone through five owners in 10
years. It's just so damn bleak."

Team president Rod Thorn, while conceding that times are tough, insists that his team is no different from others.

"The work environment has changed in every business, even if you
just go by what you read and observe," Thorn said. "There are cutbacks
everywhere -- jobs redefined, personnel shifts. So you can't say the
NBA is different from other businesses."

Ratner's business, however, is very different from every other NBA enterprise.

He was, after all, the man who built the first office tower in
Brooklyn in a quarter century, developing a new downtown in a
downtrodden area. Even the ambitious nature of Atlantic Yards was
laudable: Along with a new arena and office space, Ratner planned to
have 2,250 "affordable" rental units, and though the meaning of that
term was vigorously debated ("one of the great weasel words of modern
marketing," proclaimed New York magazine, a Ratner critic), the number
was not insignificant.

But that part of the plan illustrates his tendency to overreach in
the horrendous economic climate: Forest City now admits that only 450
"affordable" units would be completed in phase one of the project,
which could take as long as 2014 to complete under a modified plan.

The basketball team, meanwhile, is more insignificant than at any
time in the last decade, dropping 13 percent in value (to $295
million), in the past year, according to Forbes Magazine. The Nets even
traded away their primary star, Vince Carter, for salary cap space that
they may never use.

Even a statement from Yormark on that subject sounded less than
enthusiastic: "We are not going to comment on our specific plans. But
if an opportunity presents itself for us to improve our team, and if it
makes sense for us, we will pursue it."

The Nets are currently in a bad position to pursue anything. They
had a league-worst 29-percent drop in ticket revenue last year,
according to the memo sent from the NBA to its teams on July 8; and
their operating losses in fiscal 2009 was $27.8M, according to Forest
City Enterprises financials printed by Sports Business Journal.